


sounds like a crossroads

by aromantic-eight (rbmifan), patrexes



Category: Marvel, Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Mirror Universe, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:55:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rbmifan/pseuds/aromantic-eight, https://archiveofourown.org/users/patrexes/pseuds/patrexes
Summary: Loki-as-Wanda gives Billy some advice. Things go rapidly downhill from there.





	sounds like a crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> First snippet in our mirrorverse setting; In which the Young Avengers are Evil ™ versions of themselves (except Loki, who is herself).

She’d seen him sitting outside the mansion before. Maybe once or twice a month, since she’d taken Wanda’s place in the Avengers. He never approached, just sat there with his backpack and his phone, a dark haired, awkward teenager with a pensive frown. Another adoring mortal, hoping to catch a glimpse of the greatest heroes of Earth. Except this one didn’t feel like an ordinary human. There was a power there, simmering underneath the surface, twisting and tugging at reality to listen to it, obey it.

Loki peered through the drawn curtains of the mansion at the kid and wondered if he even knew the power was there. If he was a mutant, powers generally came out during the teenage years or later. He was around the right age, barely. Behind her, muffled conversation drifted from the kitchen; the sound of pots and utensils, and the occasional laughter. They’d be expecting Wanda soon, and Loki would suck it up and be that for them. Soon. But she felt like having some fun first.

She glanced behind her to check nobody was watching and then teleported out of the room. Between one moment and the next she was standing on a sidewalk just outside the mansion. It was a dismal day; the clouds that hung low over the street looked almost like smoke and there was a breeze that would probably feel chilly to a human. She pulled her hoodie up as though on a casual stroll as an extremely famous superhero and approached the kid.

“Are you all right?” It was important to be kind and concerned in situations like this. Kids responded well to it, she was pretty sure.

He didn’t even look up. “I’ll be okay. Thanks.” But he moved his backpack off the ledge beside him, so she took a seat. Kind and concerned. He was bleeding, she noticed, from his nose and had a rather nasty black eye. She asked him about it.

“I kinda got punched in the face, repeatedly.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m… different.” Of course.

The scarf said a lot, really. She bit back all of the reclaimed slurs she couldn’t use right now, because Wanda Maximoff was going to be the death of her, and unhappily went for— “Gay? Transgender?” She glanced at the mansion he was so fond of. “A mutant?”

He breathed a laugh and said, “I wish I was a mutant.”

Loki laughed. She wasn’t sure if it was what Wanda would have done, but honestly sometimes you had to go with what came naturally.

She looked at the angry, swollen mess of his eye and leaned toward him conspiratorially. “Can I tell you a secret?” she said. “I’d make every bullied kid a mutant if I could. Harder to pummel someone who can gut you with their mind.” Wanda, she reminded herself. Wanda wouldn’t be as pleased by that mental image, for some reason. She tried to dial back. “It’s not very superhero-ly of me to say, I know. Excessive force. With great power, et cetera.”

The kid finally looked up at that, startled, and his eyes went wider when they landed on her face. “Oh my god,” he breathed. “You’re… the Scarlet Witch. You’re my favorite Avenger.” He stopped, and briefly looked a bit like he’d just walked off a cliff and realized there was no bridge. “I can’t believe I just said that out loud.” He paused, then looked away. “You really think that?”

Of course Wanda was his favorite Avenger. Loki didn’t roll her eyes, somehow. It was adorable, in a way, and at the same time she hated the thought of him… wasting that potential the same way Wanda always had.

“I do,” she told him. “What are you planning to do tomorrow, when you see this bully again?”

The kid shrugged. “Run as quickly as possible in the other direction.”

“Then he wins,” she told him. “And you spend the rest of your high school years afraid. Sounds like a shit deal.”

The kid shrugged again. “What else can I do? If I had powers—”

“You don’t need powers to fuck up somebody’s day. Sure, it helps, but if you think one step ahead—” or travel back in time “—you can make their life miserable in all sorts of ways.”

The kid made a face. “That’s very inspirational, but when was the last time you dealt with anyone without your powers?”

“You know what, kid? I can’t argue with that.” She thought, fuck it, why not. “Come here.”

Hesitantly, the kid turned to face her fully. People really trusted Avengers a lot. Loki tapped him lightly on the forehead, just once, and the bruising around his eyes smoothed out into undamaged skin. As she moved her hand away she also tugged lightly at his powers, drawing them just a bit closer to the surface. “Next time you see that bully of yours, I have a feeling the fight’s gonna go a lot differently.”

She stood up, smoothing down her tragically scarlet hoodie. Behind her, the kid made an aborted, frustrated sound.

“That’s it?”

She turned around, walking across the street backward, and spread her arms. “Fuck ‘em up, kid. It’s you or them.”

~*~

Two weeks later, she was curled up in an armchair in the Avengers’ living room, watching a news story about a teenage mutant who’d killed two other students at his school when his powers manifested. Electricity. Nasty way to go. As the other Avengers sat riveted to the screen, making dismayed noises, Loki smiled to herself. Good for him.


End file.
